The fall armyworm is a continuous resident of the Gulf States. Corn, sorghum, and other plants of the grass family are its preferred foods, but the fall armyworm also attacks alfalfa, bean, peanut, potato, sweet potato, turnip, spinach, tomato, cabbage, cucumber, cotton, tobacco, all grain crops, and clover. Each year the fall armyworm can be found as far north as Montana, Michigan, and New Hampshire. In the southeast it occurs annually on late corn.
In this disclosure, ISU researchers report a discovery that may be exploited to develop a technology to control the armyworm without using chemical insecticides. The finding is that the VP4 coat protein from the Junonia coenia Densovirus rapidly crosses the midgut epithelium of this insect. Thus, there is an opportunity to develop effective insecticidal VP4/toxin fusion proteins capable to kill the worm by ingestion of the toxic proteins produced endogenously in a biotech crop.